SUNDAY: Buonanotte helps Quilmes draw at River and Independiente snatch point from Sarmiento (VIDEO)

The faces of both River’s and Independiente’s players as they trudged off their home pitches clearly illustrated that the disappointing draws were certainly two points dropped. Independiente had earlier hosted newly promoted, Sarmiento de Junín and were grateful to Matías Pisano’s injury time equaliser to salvage a point and avoid an embarrassing defeat after Héctor Cuevas’ 83rd minute header. Once more the fans let Jorge Almirón know their feelings at full time after another disjointed and at times clueless performance.

While Independiente have had their fair share of poor performances over the past year, River Plate manager, Marcelo Gallardo described his sides draw against Quilmes as “the worst match since I have been here.” A tepid first half produced little of note but it didn’t take long for the second half to spark to life. After just seven minutes of the second half, one of River’s few precise passages of play was worked on to the right to Camilo Mayada and his clipped cross left Teo Gutiérrez with the simplest of headers. However, Quilmes struck back through a very familiar face to those at the Monumental. Diego Buonanotte rolled back the years as he skipped past a couple of challenges and fired them level in the 68th minute. Leonardo Ponzio’s deflected effort gave River the lead again but Quilmes, showing far more ambition than Julio Falcioni’s pre-match comments suggested, equalised again. Emiliano Carrasco was left in space, following a free kick which was never really cleared, and he rifled his shot past Marcelo Barovero. River pushed for a winner but Quilmes held firm to hold on to a valuable and deserved point.